Budget 2017

23 November 2017

Stamp duty and housing

Stamp duty to be abolished immediately for first-time buyers purchasing properties worth up to £300,000

To help those in London and other expensive areas, the first £300,000 of the cost of a £500,000 purchase by all first-time buyers will be exempt from stamp duty, with the remaining £200,000 incurring 5%.

95% of all first-time buyers will benefit, with 80% not paying stamp duty

Reduction will apply immediately in England, Wales and Northern Ireland although the Welsh government will have to decide whether to continue it when stamp duty is devolved in April 2018

It will not apply in Scotland unless Scottish government decides to follow suit

£44bn in overall government support for housing to meet target of building 300,000 new homes a year by the middle of the next decade

Councils given powers to charge 100% council tax premium on empty properties

Compulsory purchase of land banked by developers for financial reasons

£400m to regenerate housing estates and £1.1bn to unlock strategic sites for development

Review into delays in developments given planning permission being taken forward

£28m for Kensington and Chelsea council to provide counselling services and mental health support for victims of the Grenfell fire and for regeneration of surrounding area

New homelessness task force

Alcohol, tobacco and fuel

Tobacco will continue to rise by 2% above Retail Price Index (RPI) inflation, equivalent to 28p on a pack of 20, while the minimum excise duty on cigarettes introduced in March will also rise

Duty on hand-rolling tobacco will increase by additional 1%

Duty on beer, wine, spirits and most ciders will be frozen, equating to 1p off a pint of beer and 6p of a typical bottle of wine

But duty on high-strength "white ciders" to be increased in 2019 via new legislation

Fuel duty rise for petrol and diesel cars scheduled for April 2018 scrapped

Vehicle excise duty for cars, vans and motorcycles registered before April 2017 to rise by inflation

Vehicle excise duty for new diesel cars not meeting latest standards to rise by one band in April 2018

Tax hike will not apply to van owners

Existing diesel supplement in company car tax to rise by 1%

Proceeds to fund a new £220m clean air fund for pollution hotspots in England

Personal taxation and wages

Tax-free personal allowance on income tax to rise to £11,850 in line with inflation in April 2018

Higher-rate tax threshold to increase to £46,350

Short-haul air passenger duty rates and long-haul economy rates to be frozen, paid for by an increase on premium-class tickets and on private jets

National Living Wage to rise in April 2018 by 4.4%, from £7.50 an hour to £7.83.

The state of the economy

Growth forecast for 2017 slashed from 2% to 1.5%

Forecasts for 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 revised down to 1.4%, 1.3%, 1.5% and 1.6% respectively.

Productivity growth revised down by an average of 0.7% a year up to 2023

Annual rate of CPI inflation forecast to fall from peak of 3% towards 2% target later this year

Another 600,000 people forecast to be in work by 2022

£3bn to be set aside over next two years to prepare UK for every possible outcome as UK leaves EU

The state of the public finances

Annual government borrowing £49.9bn this year, £8.4bn lower than forecast in March

Borrowing forecast to fall in real terms in the subsequent five years from £39.5bn in 2018-19 to £25.6bn in 2022-23.

But projected borrowing has been revised up for 2019-2020, 2020-2021 and 2021-22, compared to March, due to the weaker economic outlook and expected lower tax yields

Public sector net borrowing forecast to fall from 3.8% of GDP last year to 2.4% this year, then 1.9%, 1.6%, 1.5% and 1.3% in subsequent years, reaching 1.1% in 2022-23.

Debt will peak at 86.5% of GDP this year, then fall to 86.4% next year; then 86.1%, 83.1% and 79.3% in subsequent years, reaching 79.1% in 2022-23.

Welfare and pensions

£1.5bn package to "address concerns" about the delivery of universal credit

Seven-day initial waiting period for processing of claims to be scrapped

Claimants to get 100% advance payments within five days of applying from January

Typical first payment will take five weeks rather than current six

Repayment period for advances to increase from six to 12 months.

New universal credit claimants in receipt of housing benefit to continue to receive it for two weeks

Business and digital

VAT threshold for small business to remain at £85,000 for two years

£500m support for 5G mobile networks, full fibre broadband and artificial intelligence

£540m to support the growth of electric cars, including more charging points

A further £2.3bn allocated for investment in research and development

Rises in business rates to be pegged to CPI measure of inflation, not higher RPI, a cut of £2.3bn

Digital economy royalties relating to UK sales which are paid to a low-tax jurisdiction to be subject to income tax as part of tax avoidance clampdown. Expected to raise about £200m a year